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Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels isn't just altering the atmosphere -- it's also souring the seas, scientists say. And as the world's oceans turn more acidic, marine creatures such as oysters, clams, crabs and corals find it harder to grow shells or skeletons to survive in that environment. This threatens not only marine life but the coastal communities that rely on commercial fisheries for their livelihoods. In fact, a new nationwide analysis shows the Chesapeake Bay is one of 15 hot spots for ocean acidification, with Hampton Roads at particular economic risk because it has the third-highest dependence on commercial shellfish in the country. "Our...

Related "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration" Articles

Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels isn't just altering the atmosphere -- it's also souring the seas, scientists say.
And as the world's oceans turn more acidic, marine creatures such as oysters, clams, crabs and corals find it harder to grow shells...

Scientists have a handle on what happens to air pollution spewing from tailpipes and smokestacks in the summer when sunlight and moisture can quickly interact with and transform key pollutants.
They know far less about what happens to those pollutants in...

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council failed to take action Wednesday on a measure to protect deep-sea coral canyon ecosystems off the Atlantic coast from human activity, including Norfolk Canyon off Virginia.Council members meeting in Raleigh,...

About 80 miles off the Virginia coast, the Continental Shelf drops off from a depth of 600 feet to sink thousands of feet more toward the black bottom of the deep ocean.
The shelf stretches north to Canada, and carved all along its slope are great...

Just as forecasters predicted, the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends Sunday, was a bit of a yawn.
Hampton Roads, in particular, was spared the high winds, flooding and property damage that hurricanes can inflict — despite an unusually early...

Break out the snow shovel or not? Depends on which winter forecast you subscribe to.
Last winter brought icy polar blasts and snow to Hampton Roads, for instance, but federal forecasters said Thursday we're unlikely to see that extreme pattern repeat...

The Atlantic hurricane season officially kicks off Sunday, and federal forecasters say odds are we'll be seeing fewer hurricanes than normal.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects an El Nino to develop this summer, a weather...

Too many coastal Virginia residents will not be moved by the bluster accompanying the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. Dire predictions of powerful storms will be met by bravado and tales of having already endured the worst Mother Nature could...

Virginia’s annual Hurricane Preparedness sales tax holiday will take place from Sunday, May 25 to Saturday, May 31. During the seven-day tax break, purchases of certain hurricane preparedness items will be exempt from Virginia sales tax.
The sales tax in...

The Mariners’ Museum reopened its giant USS Monitor conservation lab this week after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — which administers the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary — agreed to provide a one-year funding allocation of...

Did you feel that? Last month was the hottest June ever recorded.
That’s what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says as it tracks land and water temperatures around the world.
NOAA says the combined average global temperatures for June...

Arthur isn't the earliest tropical storm ever to form in the Atlantic, but it did spring up about a week earlier than the 43-year average, according to the National Hurricane Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
And if Arthur...

HAMPTON — As the first hurricane of the season swept up the coast Thursday, many residents on the Peninsula went about their normal summer activities.
While Hurricane Arthur is one of the earliest hurricanes to emerge in recent years, residents seemed...

Virginia's annual Hurricane Preparedness sales tax holiday will take place from Sunday to Saturday. During the seven-day tax break, purchases of certain hurricane preparedness items will be exempt from Virginia sales tax.The sales tax in Hampton Roads...

The forecast for bigger dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay this summer finally bore out last month — at least for the upper bay.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources reported the eighth largest dead zone on record for early August, a...

The dead zone bedeviling the upper Chesapeake Bay still hasn't shrunk in overall size and now is considered the fifth-largest in 30 years of record-keeping, experts say.
New data just released by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources shows that...

At 2 a.m. on Aug. 23, Luke Ziemba strapped himself into a P-3 turboprop aircraft with 14 other scientists and flight crew in Tampa, Fla., and set off to rendezvous with a hurricane.
Technically, Cristobal wasn't a hurricane yet, but a tropical depression...

Last year, Virginia witnessed the worst mass dolphin die-off in its history as more than 300 bottlenose dolphins began stranding — about five times the annual average.
Marine biologists were flummoxed. They suspected a deadly morbillivirus, and stranding...

A “thin and obviously disoriented” 40-foot whale is swimming in circles and laps in the rivers and creeks of the Chesapeake Bay, and the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team is trying to figure out why.Team members have set out every day for nearly a...

It's been a tepid hurricane season so far, and odds are getting better it'll stay that way.
As the Atlantic hurricane season approaches its peak, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration adjusted its 2014 forecast and now says the chances of a...